What makes ralph lauren unique

Chaps: This brand is similar to the Lauren by Ralph Lauren brand, and offers casual sportswear and dresses at a slightly lower price point.

It draws on authentic inspirations, from nautical styles to American vogue, and offers apparel for men, women and children as well as home accessories. The above sub-brands allow Ralph Lauren to operate in many segments of the fashion apparel market and capture value in ways that do not cannibalize the other brands in the portfolio. Leveraging its strong brand equity in the fashion apparel market, Ralph Lauren has also extended the brand to watches and fine jewellery, categories that are natural extensions of fashion and luxury.

The brand has also extended into other product categories such as:. It offers furniture, bed and bath linens, china, crystal, silver, decorative accessories, gifts, lighting, fabric, wall and floorcovering, and photography artwork. Today, it has expanded into a variety of 10 fragrances for men, 9 fragrances for women and 3 unisex fragrances.

Just like how its fashion brands are strongly inspired by Americana, the food is inspired by American classics and modern city-club cuisine — think seafood, steaks, chops, sandwiches and salads. In , it opened its first coffee shop on the second floor of the Polo Ralph Lauren flagship store in Manhattan.

In , it opened The Polo Bar in the heart of New York, offering a more casual yet refined setting for food and drink. The RL Restaurants are indeed a great way to present another channel for consumers to experience the Ralph Lauren brand, rather than just its fashion and home products.

Through extending into multiple product categories, Ralph Lauren has been able to leverage its brand equity to have a presence in these lucrative sectors. It is truly a success story of classic brand management — appealing to a broad category of discerning, fashion conscious consumers through holistic brand equity encompassing multiple categories combined with a high-quality product experience.

Brand architecture management: Strong brands provide companies with a very powerful tool to enter newer markets with limited investment, by leveraging their strong brand equity.

It provides companies with opportunities to create multiple revenue streams. Therefore it is not a surprise that most strong brands have leveraged their equity and extended into newer product categories, newer markets, and newer market segments.

However this strategy has its own pitfalls. One of them is the risk of dilution of brand equity by over-stretching the brand into too many product and market segments. Some examples of brand equity dilution due to overstretch are those of Calvin Klein and Pierre Cardin. One of the many reasons that these brands diluted their equity was the use of the brand name on a very wide range of products. By franchising their brand names to almost every conceivable product category, the brands significantly diluted their equity.

This was because of a simple reason — a brand cannot have transferable equity in different product categories. In the last 50 years, the Ralph Lauren brand has expanded to create a diverse portfolio of sub-brands, of which 17 are fashion brands and 4 lifestyle brands. With such a burgeoning portfolio, Ralph Lauren has to be more focused and careful about managing and maintaining the equity of the master brand.

It also becomes more complex to maintain a consistent brand personality across all marketing and communication efforts, especially when the sub-brands do need to talk to different consumer segments who in turn have different and discerning needs.

Over the long term, the performance of acquired brands also needs to be analyzed in isolation and also in relation to the wider portfolio. In continuation of its strategy of expanding into categories that have synergies with high-end fashion, Ralph Lauren may keep on exploring opportunities.

With the master brand already quite stretched, it would need to take these decisions more carefully. Whatever category the expansion is into, and regardless of whether it is via an acquisition or through the launch of a new sub-brand, Ralph Lauren would need to ensure that the spirit of the brand lives through in a holistic manner.

Additionally, the integration of new sub-brands or acquired brands into the architecture of the portfolio will always remain challenging. Store profitability and inventory management: Another challenge that Ralph Lauren faces is store profitability and inventory management. This has had an effect on its bottom-line. As such, new management has expressed that it has plans to close about 50 high end stores to improve store profitability and reduce inventory as most of the inventory was subject to heavy discounting.

Given that customer insights are the holy grail of modern business, the more companies know about their customers, the better they can innovate and compete. One very good example of a company that has successfully leveraged its customer research capabilities to improve inventory management is Zara.

This has allowed them to accurately supply fashion that resonates with customers in almost perfect quantities, resulting in the discounting of a very small proportion of its products, approximately half compared to its competitors — a very impressive feat.

Similarly, Ralph Lauren needs to also do the same and consider how it is using its customer intelligence capabilities to anticipate demand more accurately and respond with optimum levels of supply.

As the main competitive advantage for the company is the founder himself, life after the founder is a hard topic for both the founder and company to discuss. Ralph Lauren himself has a net worth of USD 5. With regard to corporate governance, as the brand continues into a new chapter, the search for a new CEO has ended. However, due to differences in opinion over direction, Stefan Larsson departed from the company in May In a bid to make Ralph Lauren a leaner company, the company has recently eliminated layers of management through restructuring.

For instance, the office of the chairman has been eliminated and the duties have been absorbed. It is expected that this will help improve efficiency within the organization, hence leading to greater profitability. Over several decades, in a commercially successful effort to broaden its appeal and make the lifestyle more readily available, the house brand diversified its product portfolio into 16 diffusion lines.

Too often, the result was more or less the same designs and styles all featuring the same logo while being sold at hugely divergent price points. This situation was further exacerbated by poor retail traction, combined with 15 month lead times, which made it impossible to reconcile a mismatch in supply and demand. Over a three year period ending fiscal , there was a 26 per cent growth in inventory despite only a 7 per cent growth in sales.

It has achieved this all-important aim by using unique design elements, helping customers make it out from other brands. This logo is flying high with its rarity. Few emblems can stay for decades without updates. The owner understood its target audience and symbolized a novel outlook from its onset.

This makes the brand everlasting with pride. The Ralph logo has familiar elements that project its brand personality. The player and its horse are recognizable everywhere. With its impressive tone, the logo is easy for customers to remember. This has created a powerful image and connection in the minds of its loyal customers. Companies desire to expose their brands to the world.

However, this depends on the layout of the logo design. The Ralph Lauren logo is versatile because the company can use it in a variety of ways. Its subtle form offers it the power to fit on multiple mediums with no barrier.

The famed clothing brand, Ralph Lauren, has adhered to the branding rules. The designer focused on fewer graphic elements—a Polo player, horse, and custom typeface to design its visual assets. It also considers American pop culture, team spirit, and wealth. A horse, a symbol of freedom, embodies the spirit of courage, loyalty, and willpower. Can you hit a target without damaging an object?

Well, this is the essence of the wooden mallet in the game of Polo. The mallet shows the step—by—step methods the brand uses to meet its goals. The Ralph Lauren Logo Colors are communication tools. They can spark various emotions ranging from warmth, comfort, anger, and violence. Experts use them to signal action, influence mood, and purchasing decisions. Though there are many colors, it pays to select them wisely to tell your brand story. The Ralph Lauren Logo uses the black hue to convey an air of power, elegance, and strength.

Black as a reserved color can also evoke aggression, authority, and fear. And as a dark color, people relate it to death, evil, and mystery in most cultures. The entire brand has now become a true lifestyle brand, and all others are trailing in its path. Angelika Pokovba has ridden all paths of life, from luxury fashion to travel writing. But equestrian sports have always lurked in the shadows since learning to ride as a child with her dad. She is now turning her long-time hobby into a proper journalistic beat.

Get first dibs on articles, interviews, and updates for free with your subscription to PoloWeekly. Subscribe below! Subscribe Now. Image Courtesy: High Snobiety. A look at the old Polo Ralph Lauren logo. Ralph Lauren for US Open. A look at Ralph Lauren now. Angelika Pokovba Angelika Pokovba has ridden all paths of life, from luxury fashion to travel writing. This comment form is under antispam protection.

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